


If Things Had Been Different

by mooselion



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character, Equalist, Equalist!Asami, F/F, Politics, Struggle with Sexual Orientation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-03-29 06:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3886177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooselion/pseuds/mooselion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asami has struggled with her father's Equalist leanings in the past, but is now fully on board with the Equalist mission to remove oppressive benders from power. But Asami doesn't have the full picture of what Amon and her father have planned for the benders of Republic City, and she certainly doesn't expect to feel the way she does about the newly-arrived Avatar. </p><p>Equalist!Asami AU vaguely inspired by this fanart: http://beroberos.tumblr.com/post/44686112921</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the morning paper

**Author's Note:**

> I can't promise a regular schedule of updates, but I do promise if you stick with me that I have no plans for this fic to peter out before completion.
> 
> This Chapter: Asami learns of Korra's arrival in Republic City.

Asami rose from her bed, preparing herself for another long day in the workshop and, even as she pulled back the covers and put on her robe to head to the shower, her mind was already whirring with thoughts of her most recent project. She'd spent hours working late on it yesterday with little interruption, but there was one major component that needed to be resolved and some other minor adjustments to be made.

She was still puzzling over it as she headed downstairs to join her father for breakfast. Hiroshi woke early and, ever since she'd finished school and officially begun working for Future Industries, she found herself keeping a similar schedule. It allowed them what little time they had to spend together that wasn't spent at work – their morning tea.

It was a rare occasion, but this morning she made it downstairs first. Asami put the kettle on and went to see if their butler, Oyaji, had arrived with the morning paper yet.

This had become their routine together. Early mornings, tea, newspaper, and then to work. Asami spent most of her time testing new designs in the workshop on the estate. Not much of a commute, but that just meant she had to find other excuses to take her car out for a spin. She also did spend some days at the factory offices, shadowing her father to get a better sense of management. Hiroshi split his time between his office, the factory in the city's downtown and figuring his new design projects in the workshop on the estate.

Hiroshi had taught his daughter everything he knew about mechanics. His passion for engineering had granted him a success that not only raised him out of poverty, it had landed him in luxury. But his passion was not rooted in his financial success – though that was an undeniably welcome reward – it fed a voracious intellectual curiosity, which he was overjoyed to find his daughter shared with him. They had disagreed in the past, but their technical work had never been a point of contention. It was one true connection they shared, which they both seemed to recognize and did their best to take advantage of. Sharing this routine and their work in Future Industries was part of this concerted effort they both made to hold onto each other.

Oyaji was always sure to pick up the early morning paper on his way to work at the Sato Estate, and today Asami just about met him at the doorway.

“Up early, Miss Sato?”

“Thank you, Oyaji,” she said as she accepted the paper he handed to her. “Yes, there's a project that I've hit a roadblock on and need to work out today.”

“No doubt you'll figure it out, Miss Sato.”

Asami smiled at his kind remark. “Best to get an early start anyhow,” she replied, always modest when it came to compliments. Growing up, her father had been realistic with her, but she had been met with an inordinate amount of praise from all manner of obsequious Future Industries clients, investors, and workers; rather than internalize that praise as indisputable truth, she had grown to doubt the sincerity of others and rely on her own critical assessment of her skills. Asami knew her mind, and she could see that of all people Oyaji's comment was genuine, but she thought better than to take such sincerity for granted.

Her father had arrived at the breakfast table in her absence, as well as their cook, Pao, who was puttering around the kitchen area, having assumed command of preparing the tea and light breakfast.

“Good morning, father. Pao,” see greeted them as she reentered the room, still without a glance to the paper yet.

“Good morning, Miss Sato.”

“Up before me today, I see?” Hiroshi commented.

“There's a mechanical problem that's been nagging at me,” Asami confessed, as she took her seat across from him at the table.

“Oh? I could take a look with you if you think I might be able to help.”

“Thanks, that might be a good idea,” she said into the paper as she thumbed though for the Business section to hand to her father, which she found promptly and delivered to him.

“After lunch today, then. I have a few morning meetings.”

Asami made no answer as she folded the paper back to the front page for herself and a large photograph caught her attention. The caption read with the word “mugshot,” but the girl in the photo was half-smiling with a sort of excited confusion reading in her eyes, as if the natural instinct to smile for the usually-pleasant occasion of being photographed had been disorientingly marred by the less-pleasant circumstances of police arrest. It was sort of charming and Asami found herself unconsciously mirroring the girl's expression.

“Asami?”

Her father's voice drew her back to reality. She felt the strange expression on her face and wiped it off quickly, happy she still held the paper before her, concealing her embarrassment from her father.

“Hm? Yes, after lunch. That's fine.”

“Good.”

No longer caught in her trance, Asami finally took a moment to actually read the headline, which read quite boldly that the Avatar had made a riotous introduction to Republic City yesterday. It took a second for Asami to put the headline together with the photograph, and for it to click that this funny girl whose photo had so absorbed her was the _Avatar_.

Asami was surprised that this news hadn't been in the first words out of her father's mouth this morning.

“The Avatar is in Republic City,” she started instead.

“Yes. I thought you would have heard in the evening news on the radio yesterday. I didn't get home until very late last night; an assembly was called.”

“Oh. I missed the evening report. I was in the workshop all afternoon and I turned the radio off so I could focus. The mechanics of the adjustments to this glove are more complicated than I anticipated.”

“I'm happy to take a look.” _Why was he avoiding the subject of the Avatar?_

“What was discussed at the assembly?”

“What's that? Oh, only that the Avatar's mischief yesterday with the Triple Threats interfered with an action scheduled for tonight. Plans needed to be adjusted.”

“Oh.” His answer was relatively vague, but Asami was used to her father being rather obtuse in his discussion of Amon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun DUN!
> 
> Like you didn't see that coming, what with the whole "Equalist!Asami" summary note.


	2. losing faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asami has struggled with her father's Equalist leanings in the past, but is now fully on board with the Equalist mission to remove oppressive benders from power. But Asami doesn't have the full picture of what Amon and her father have planned for the benders of Republic City, and she certainly doesn't expect to feel the way she does about the newly-arrived Avatar.
> 
> This Chapter: Asami recalls the moment she decided to help the Equalists.

Asami returned to her paper. She would have loved for Hiroshi to elaborate, but she knew he had no intention of doing so. He'd shared many things with Asami since she had come around to his Equalist views, but there was a certain line he did not cross, certain things he would not tell her, and she had since resigned herself to these silences.

_The Avatar, 18 year old Korra from the Southern Water Tribe, was arrested yesterday afternoon for assault and destruction of property. Police Chief Lin Beifong released a statement yesterday evening confirming the Avatar's involvement in an incident in the Narrows, though all charges by the city have been dropped. Councilman Tenzin, the Avatar's guardian, will compensate property owners for the damage. Three members of city gang the Triple Threat Triad were also arrested on the same charges and are still in custody...._

Asami continued reading about the Avatar's exploits. It seems Avatar Korra had made quite a mess on the street, damaging multiple storefronts before giving chase. The police chief's statement was brusque and made no attempt to hide her aggravation with the Avatar's actions and bail-out by the councilman.

From the photos of the scene printed below the fold, Asami could see the damage Avatar Korra had done. Two of the three small business owners would struggle in the time it took to rebuild and they probably had families to support. The damage was real, and the girl in the photo...could she see that? Did she understand what her aggression, her power, had done?

However, it did seem like her involvement in this incident had been spurred on by the Triple Threats. A statement from the councilman made it clear that Korra's actions had been directed against Triad members who were threatening one of the shop owners. And if that were truly the case...well, maybe there was more to the Avatar than the fight that seemed to burn violently inside so many benders.

Asami opened the paper to the center fold and read on, with thoughts about the incident with the Avatar still untangling themselves in the back of her mind and the nagging problems with her shop project forgotten for the time being. Scanning the entire cover section was part of her morning ritual and usually embedded on the last page were pro-bending scores.

Asami didn't care about pro-bending anymore, even actively disliked it, but, to her own frustration, she could always tell you which teams were on top this week. It was difficult to ignore the score charts when an article she was reading was printed right along side them. The Fire Ferrets had played a good game the other night, she noticed incidentally before forcing her eyes back to the column she was finishing.

When she was done, Asami folded the paper neatly and set it on the table, taking another sip of her tea. The photo of Avatar Korra stared up at her goofily and Asami couldn't help smirking a little as she stared back down at it. She didn't look violent. She seemed...guileless. She didn't have the glint of crookedness Asami saw in the mugshots of cocky gang members, nor the furious, steely glare she'd witnessed in the eyes of a bender before.

No, she couldn't imagine any hardness into the Avatar's eyes, not like the sharp, dark gaze Mako had so often sported. Part of Mako had always been closed to her for the brief intense time they had dated, and it was part of him she had decided she didn't want to get to know.

Mako was turning out to be a great pro-bender. Without meaning to, Asami had noted their recent wins in the paper as the season drew on. The Fire Ferrets had only just begun competing when she had first started dating Mako, and the team hadn't found its rhythm yet, but Asami had found herself attending every one of their games since the season began. There was a thrill to the sport and it was fascinating to watch as a martial artist. Asami wasn't a bender, of course, but the stances still translated roughly, and even though she didn't really know what it felt like to move earth or whip water, she could read that energy in the way the athletes held their bodies and she found it fascinating.

Her father had been furious with her. Until she'd met Mako, Asami hadn't had much real contact with benders in her daily life. She worked so hard, and often on her own, for her father's company and there hadn't been many benders enrolled in her school growing up. She knew how her father felt about benders. Ever since her mother had been killed, he hadn't had any mercy for them. Asami was less vindictive than her father, but she hadn't really crossed many boundaries in their relationship until she announced her intentions with the firebender and simultaneously revealed her interest in pro-bending, which she had wisely, she thought, neglected to mention to Hiroshi.

It hadn't been hard to keep secrets from her father. His work occupied him around the clock, but also he just not one to hover as a parent. As protective as he was of his daughter, Hiroshi had made sure Asami knew how to take care of herself and he had a confidence in her skill and her judgment. Asami had quite a bit of freedom and exercising it to steal away with her new boyfriend was something of a rush. Knowing she was betraying her father's trust was the hardest part, but that was why she'd finally told him, even if she knew how he would react. Her feelings for Mako were more intense than any past crush. And it didn't hurt than he was handsome, a rising-star athlete and it looked like he spent almost as much time on his hair as she did on hers.

But as exciting as her new relationship had been, there was a brooding glare Mako would get at times that unsettled Asami. And then his eyes would soften when he gazed at her and she would forget her concern, until one night she didn't recognize him at all, the look in his eyes was so dark.

They had stumbled right into a Triad shakedown, taking a walk after one of the Fire Ferrets' matches. She had admired how Mako jumped in to the shop keeper's defense without a second's hesitation and she'd followed him despite being matched with a bulky earth bender while Mako fought fire with fire. Still, she held her own. She was expertly trained after all, and she'd been watching pro-bending matches with a keen eye for weeks now, scrutinizing the benders' techniques. She had a few new moves she was putting to the test, though the alley they found themselves in made for tight quarters and the two fighting pairs were almost on top of each other. She pivoted, narrowly missing a boulder, when she heard the other gang member's voice huff as he sweat under Mako's assault.

“You don't know what you just stepped into, Mako.”

Asami was in motion when her boyfriend's name on this firebending criminal's lips registered in her ears. _How did this Triad bender know Mako?_ She managed the sweeping kick she'd dropped to the ground for, knocking her earth bending opponent's feet out from under him.

“I have a pretty good idea, Ping.”

She recognized Mako's voice, rising from her kick just as Mako sent a blast towards the man named Ping right past her head. Too close. And as the flame shot past Asami, as she felt its heat on her face and the glare momentarily blinded her, Asami froze and a fear she'd buried deep within herself resurfaced. She saw the visions her unconscious used to replay for her nightly – the murder she had not witnessed, but that her nightmares had recreated for her. And now Mako...

In her periphery she saw others join this fight. _Who?_ It had only been a moment, but the scene had changed entirely. Asami forced herself back to reality and, still frozen to the spot, she recognized the Equalists – their uniforms just like the lieutenant's, who reported to her father. Mako was back to back now with the firebender, Ping, each struggling with an Equalist opponent. Her earth bender was similarly entangled at the far end of the alley, as Asami now stood apart, observing as the Equalists managed to subdue the gang members and Mako found his moment, in the distraction of their capture, to escape, grabbing hold of Asami's hand as he ran.

She followed him out of the alley, but her hand was limp in his, the rest of her body stiffening at his touch. She ran, but her motion felt stilted, like the disjointed thoughts that filled her mind, like the fractured image of Mako she could not piece back together. _Mako knew the Triads. Mako was a criminal? He was dangerous._ She didn't know him at all.

So she ran with him. So she let him walk her to where her car was, once they'd covered enough ground, giving short answers to his worried questioning. There weren't any cops around the area to alert and no telephone nearby, all the shops and restaurants were closed by now...all Asami wanted was to get away, to get in her car, to drive far away from this mess and this bender, this boy she realized she barely knew. And so she did, despite his protests.

In the driver's seat, as the tears streamed down her face, she tried to make sense of it. The way Mako and the Triad member seemed to know each other. How aggressive, how reckless he'd been in his attack. The way he'd seemed to switch sides, laying off the Triad to fend off the Equalists...the Equalists who had rightfully targeted the criminal Triad members...

When she finally got home, she found her father waiting. She looked at the clock and saw that it was much later than she usually returned after her evenings with Mako. Her father approached her sternly, but when he saw her tear-stained cheeks, he stopped in his tracks. Asami closed the distance and embraced her father, to his surprise, but he softened and he held her.

The next day she had offered to help with his designs for the Equalists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how convinced this scene had you. I struggled with how to write it out.


	3. curiosity gets the better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asami has struggled with her father's Equalist leanings in the past, but is now fully on board with the Equalist mission to remove oppressive benders from power. But Asami doesn't have the full picture of what Amon and her father have planned for the benders of Republic City, and she certainly doesn't expect to feel the way she does about the newly-arrived Avatar.
> 
> This Chapter: Asami's curiosity about the Avatar proves to be a distraction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, sorry, it's been forever since my last update. And, what can I say, this story is slow to action, but thanks for reading. I have more planned. Comments welcome.

The radio droned away in the workshop. Asami didn't want to miss anymore big news like she apparently had last night, but still she was only half listening. The response time when activating the glove was too slow and the current still wasn't strong enough to have much more effect than a mild shock. She needed to figure out how to boost the power. She tinkered and meanwhile caught fragments of news: recent training maneuvers of the United Forces, currently at one of their bases in the Fire Nation; replays of the highlights from the Tigerdillo/Wolfbats pro-bending match; the Council continued their deliberations over a zoning dispute in the northside area that had halted construction; a special bulletin, the Avatar would be holding a press conference today – _wait_.

Asami perked up and froze in the middle of her work to catch the full bulletin.

_The Avatar will be holding a press conference today on the steps of City Hall at 1pm. Avatar Korra will be making a much anticipated statement on her business in Republic City. Tune in this afternoon for the live broadcast..._

Today at 1pm. That was when Asami usually took her lunch. She didn't usually leave her workshop on the estate for lunch, but it wasn't _entirely_ unprecedented. Oyaji probably wouldn't take much note of her going and her father was at the factory, he would come help her after lunch, he'd said...She looked back down at her prototype and continued working, but her mind was busy working through a much different puzzle than the circuitry issue.

 _The Avatar's business in Republic City_...to be honest, Asami couldn't imagine what that might be. Avatar Korra was around her age and there had never been much news printed or broadcast about her growing up. “The Avatar” was something she'd learned about in school. Roku, Kyoshi, they all seemed a part of some more ancient history, a much older, almost mystical, time. Who lived to be over 200 years old, anyway? And riding dragons? She had heard Lord Zuko still rode one, but she'd never seen it herself. The idea was all so...mythical. And it's not like there were any spirits in Republic City. The Spirit World was somewhere only the Avatar could visit. Asami never gave it much thought.

Of course, she had learned all about Aang, and how he had help form the United Republic, and the Council. She'd learned about his travels, too, with masters Katara and Toph, and Katara's brother, Sokka, but those sounded like tall tales compared to the more practical politics of maintaining the Republic. Avatar Aang as a political figure, that she understood. And Avatar Korra – was this teenager going to guide the Council like Aang had? Asami thought of the photo again and tried to picture that girl influencing the stodgy and hard-headed Council. She tried to picture herself in Avatar Korra's place, Asami Sato dominating a Council meeting...she had met a few of the Council members at various galas and banquets she'd attended with her father. Councilman Tenzin often had a look of consternation of his face and Coucil Chairman Tarrlok's put-on charm made her cringe. No, she couldn't see herself doing it. Not that she didn't have the confidence or the tenacity, she just...wouldn't know where to begin.

Asami didn't envy the Avatar. Especially not after all of the mixed press from yesterday's incident. And that was another thing, Asami thought. Her fingers fumbled on the handle on the small screwdriver she was using to tighten the world's tiniest screw, and she knelt under her workbench to pick it up. The damage Avatar Korra had done yesterday - wasn't the Avatar supposed to keep peace and balance? Avatar Korra's actions were nothing short of aggressive. She'd almost done more harm than good, and with bending. Asami straightened, screwdriver in hand and looked down at the prototype on her workbench. If she could figure out how to increase the power to the glove without increasing its size too much to the point of it being too clunky to be efficient, she hoped it would be able to knock out a bender long enough to take them out a fight so they could be turned over to police custody, without being able to give chase the way the Avatar had...but Avatar Korra, she had been fighting against the bending Triads.

Asami didn't understand her father's silence on the subject of the Avatar. She could guess that he wasn't pleased by her appearance, his distaste for bending was so unequivocal. But Asami was surprised to find herself more curious about the Avatar than anything else. Since she'd ended her relationship with Mako, she'd become wary of all benders, and without attending pro-bending matches, she found no reason to directly associate with any on a regular basis. But the Avatar, maybe she was different. Asami wanted to see for herself.

The crackling sound of the radio broadcast entered her consciousness again. She must have tuned it out entirely, but it brought her back to reality just in time for the half-hourly update on traffic alerts, followed by the time, which was 12:30pm. Without even bothering to turn off the radio, Asami dashed out of the workshop and headed briskly to the main house to grab a pork bun for the road. She would have to change, too, as her Future Industries garb was a little too conspicuous. She wasn't sure why – there would be no reason for her father to find out – but she felt like she was on some covert mission. She didn't want to stand out and she hoped no one would recognize her, but if she hurried, she should be able to make it to City Hall in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, one day Asami and Korra will actually be in a chapter together...next chapter!


End file.
